Participants

Goran Mimica

We made the film in a shack and I remember that all this time while we were doing all this torture, my dad was sitting there in the corner making schnapps. It was, like, 5 degrees, and I was in short sleeves. I was not trying to act, I was really shaking, I was super cold. The cold went straight into my stomach, into my bones, and I remember being horribly ill for, like, 7 days after that. But I survived.

Therese Davies

Born through rage more than anything, like on a banal level, when I am in the post office, I regularly shoot up the entire post-office queue in my mind, definitely, without a doubt.

Dorothée Berghaus

Actually, I wouldn’t even know how to kill someone. And if I really wanted to do it, I’d be scared of ending up in prison. That’s the first thing, really. As soon as I’d even approach the thought that someone needed to be destroyed, the thought of prison would be there. I don’t want to go to prison. In fact, I’m awfully afraid I could end up there by mistake one day.

Sergio Figueroa

In my last years to make extra cash, I was working in hotels and catering, and those jobs, that industry, they treat you like shit, definitely I had some fantasies, I just wanted to go to the hotel and kill those motherfuckers, go and be selective ‘You were nice to me? You can go ahead, just get out,’ going postal on these guys. Obviously, I didn’t do it. It was a nice way to have a laugh.

Stephan Doleschal

The kind of murder fantasies I sometimes have are alarming. Someone jostling me in the subway is already enough to sometimes make me want to kill, especially when I’m already stressed out. Actually, I believe I scare myself on such occasions.

Uli Aigner

I do not think that everybody has murder fantasies. Not on this latitude, at least. However, if one feels cornered one is likely to take even such extreme measures, if one is forced to do so. Although I’m not really sure I wouldn’t rather allow someone to kill me before defending myself.

Hans Auer

Most likely we’ve adopted our violent ways from watching animals. They bite, if they find that growling isn’t enough. (…) First one speaks, then one screams, and then one screams louder. Then one smashes a glass against the wall, which is already a violent gesture. And then one goes for the direct thing … there isn’t another step left.

Nikolaus Firmkranz

I was all plastered up, lying on the ground, completely at the mercy of the delinquent – it was a truly unsettling experience. I couldn’t get out, you know, as I’d have destroyed this plaster cast. So I just remained lying on the ground. And then there was this scene where Tamas was cramming a towel into my mouth so as to prevent me from screaming. He pushed it down so far it almost choked me – but he thought I was acting! I wanted to break free but realized that I couldn’t break the cast. So I thought ‘Well, that’s it – you’ll die in front of the camera! They’re filming a live murder.’

David Bruckner

Being killed isn’t fun, so it was sort of a weird feeling. I don’t know whether it did me any good, mentally. I remember I did think ‘Damn it, why am I doing this?’ I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a situation like the one we were shooting. Very definitely not, it’d be a real nightmare. I guess I ought to take karate lessons.

Martin Sturm

I had no experience of these outbursts of aggression that were required for the film, to make it as authentic-looking as possible. It was quite unnerving in a way. I was not acquainted with the victim. And then to suddenly have to kill a person in this racially motivated context – it wasn’t easy for me at first.

Vinzenz Kemeter

I was strapped tightly to the table, couldn’t move at all. Obviously, that was a bit unpleasant. I didn’t feel any fear but I did feel pain. There’s a scene in which I’m being hit on the belly with a truncheon. In order to have blood squirt from my belly, the truncheon was filled with fake blood – which didn’t make it any softer than a real truncheon! So that hurt quite badly. Obviously, no one reacted – they expected me to scream, after all! Well, what the hell, I’ve survived it.

Dietmar Beinhauer

Executions and torture very often used to take place in public. People went there in droves, to see someone being executed. It was a right spectacle, after all. And the shivering that came with the watching probably had some effect. Possibly one went home afterwards, thinking ‘Well, that was a close shave, could’ve been me’. Or maybe it was rather the chance of being part of it without being in danger oneself. In any case, violence has always exerted fascination.

Sara Monroe

Maybe I would like to kill someone in an act of rage, anger or self-defence. Like maybe someone tries to harm me and then I get an adrenalin rush and I manage to kill them.

Tamás Eperjessy

Well, it was quite a task to imagine killing myself all the time … In any case, it was pretty intense. I did feel somewhat drained. I had immersed myself quite deeply in dying.

Max Boehme

I grew up with three brothers, sharing a single room, so I know something about male violence. Yet even back then I never developed any fantasies of violence. On the contrary, I developed my creative faculties. I fooled them into believing that I had power over ghosts – I could draw them, you see, so they believed me. Which was great! Admittedly, it was also a form of violence, but rather subtle, if I say so myself.

Michele Cavaliere

It’s happened to me for a long time that I dream sometimes of killing somebody, for very useless things. But the point is, I just don’t kill people. I do a lot of stuff, break their face and I have their brain in my hands, it disgusts me. And the last thing in my last bad killing dream is the smell of the body because I break the body in pieces and this smell coming out of this is more disgusting than the pain of the action, it’s more than the sense of responsibility. It’s simply disgusting.

Barbara Braun

I felt quite good afterwards. There was a degree of fear involved, and yet the act of screaming and kicking my legs to get out of the coffin had something liberating, too. It was also a kind of aggression, to be sure, but an alleviating one.

Rafał Kosakowski

If I could do it all over again, I’d like to again play a killer or psychopath who storms into a building and kills everyone inside. The motive … well, I don’t really care about it, the main thing is to kill a lot of people. However, that’s not because I’m such a violent person who enjoys slaughtering people. I’m simply aware of the fact that it’s about visualizing murder and that nobody is actually harmed (…) I’m a pacifist. I’ve never owned a weapon and don’t want to, either, simply because I have a son.

Michael Dürr

I’m someone who isn’t especially receptive for the whole subject of violence. I guess I don’t feel much provoked by violence because I’ve never really been exposed to it, fortunately. In my childhood I wasn’t really confronted with violence either. However, there are people who can be very much provoked by it indeed.

Gabriela Hegedüs

I find that I’m fascinated by all these stories of passion and violation, the reversal of victim and perpetrator. These things tend to move me a lot if I come across them in a newspaper. They also scare me, frankly.

Robert Jaczyński

And so we watch the news, hoping that there’s ever more of it, that the camera perspectives are ever more gruesome, which makes us witnesses to whatever tragedy is shown. (…) Too bad for our imagination, really – instead of seeing them, we see so much of them in the media.

Grzegorz Jaworski

To tell you the truth, I’ve become quite used to the violence in the media, it’s the rule these days. (…) People need to educate themselves, really, learn to know how best to get through life.

Heli Leitner

By acting it out I saw the potential of what can happen and I discovered what it’s like to empathize with an evildoer’s position and experience the many ways of killing someone. I simply slipped into a role one doesn’t normally adopt. I suppose, however, that there’s still a difference when the whole thing happens for real.

Martina Spitzer

I have a neighbour in my house who has the habit of slamming the door virtually every day between 5.30 and 7.30 a.m. – it wakes me up nearly every morning. Now, if someone rouses you from deep sleep on a daily basis, you eventually develop a feeling of hatred. So, this guy … I’ve found myself several times thinking: ‘I’ll get up and gun him down!’ I’ve pictured the whole thing in detail: Where to hide the body? How to get rid of the pistol – a pistol I don’t even own. But if I had one, where would I hide it? I wouldn’t really kill him, you know, I’m not that daft. In my imagination, however …

Sava Kiprov

Everybody harbours thoughts of murder at least occasionally. And to avoid being tempted he rejects them. It’s an understandable reaction. Certainly, it’s not a pleasant experience to suddenly find oneself gasping for air and collapsed on the floor, realising one has just been shot dead by one’s wife, as was the case in our film. Yet what’s really terrifying is that one suddenly realises that one actually has such thoughts – and how quickly they can rise to the surface.

Michael Jesch

Maybe you get aggressive with strangers at work. I work in the public sector and therefore you realize that there are many different types of people on this earth and that some people don’t get everything and it’s very frustrating.

Michael Lung

When the extras then raced away in panic I observed how they literally fell one over another and suddenly it wasn’t a mere game any longer. They actually bumped into each other, stampede-like. So what struck me most was how the instinct of self-preservation took over so quickly, even though it was only a game. It was this behaviour that made me actually realize the threat.

Gebhard Ottacher

Although I was well aware of the fact that it was a blank pistol it still was quite scary momentarily. It was only play-acting, true, but the emotions were there nonetheless. It is an awkward sensation, having a pistol aimed at oneself.

Harald Maderbacher

I’ve been involved in conflict situations in which weapons systems and handguns were used. It’s a very precarious situation, to be sure, in which one’s own life is in danger, if one pictures various scenarios. Oddly, I cannot remember whether I felt any mortal fear or broke out in cold sweat …

Paolo Marzocchi

A couple of weeks ago I destroyed my mobile phone. I wanted to do something bad. I couldn’t kill someone, so I took my mobile phone that was ringing and I threw it on the floor in such a hard way that it exploded and the battery jumped into the toilet. It explained to me that I was very ridiculous at that moment because I couldn’t control anything.

Viktoria von Prachtental

Sometimes when I’m stressed out I quite feel like running amok. It is an artistic game that helps alleviate the stress. The annoying thing about homicidal mania is that one can’t really witness it afterwards. And as for the end, I can’t say I care for it a lot.

Nicholas Mortimore

I am happy to say that it was the only time I’ve ever brutally murdered somebody. At the time I wasn’t to worried about murdering somebody, it was a role which was fun to play. Thinking back, I remember being very nervous about what I did before the brutal murder. I was very keen to show this strange psychopath who is going out of his head. The murder itself was almost secondary.

Dorit Oitzinger

Violence is always present in my life. When I wake up in the morning and feel that I don’t want to, that’s when, in a certain sense, an act of violence occurs. Whenever there is a feeling of antagonism, an act of violence is about to happen. Its intensity depends on just how important something is for me, and how impossible to reach or get it. So, pain and victimisation are just as much a part of it as being a perpetrator.

Lucas Vossoughi

The more one represses, the more pent-up feelings accumulate. That’s not my major discovery, it’s ancient knowledge. I’ve noticed that the more people I get to know – and you are a case in point – especially people who deal with the darker side of life – these people often seem to be the most optimistic people of them all.

Andy Sarup

Good people have a conscience and are aware how they interact with people and try not to cause them troubles or problems. Whereas people who are not as good, don’t give a damn about other people. They are willing to cause pain, hurt or go the way to do that.

Franziska Würzl

I believe many people would say they don’t have any fantasies of violence simply because they’ve forgotten them afterwards. I believe the whole thing is ingrained in everyday existence in such a manner that aggression is mentally transformed into an image … an image which then fades again.

Manuel Smalis

Man is brutal and violent. And the major question is not how violence is created but how it has been prevented over centuries.

Ries Straver

I would never be the first one to hit. But if somebody hits me, I’ll hit back. And if somebody stabs me, I’ll probably stab back. If somebody tries to shoot me, I would probably shoot him in the legs or in the knees. If somebody would try to kill me, I would probably be able to kill.

Reya Silao

Dissatisfaction, frustration, that’s where violence can come from, fiery emotions of being frustrated, angry, having no hope, desperation. If you’re in a situation where you’re constantly frustrated, constantly angry, constantly inhibited, desperate, who knows? Maybe you are forced to act violently.

Claudia Martini

I believe that everybody has the potential to do everything. Because he is human. Because he has a hand. Because he can pick up a knife and stab … the physical conditions are there. However, whether everybody admits that and is ready to in fact externalize his murder fantasies, I really couldn’t say.

Vitus Wieser

These thoughts are usually emotional. If I hear about someone raping and dismembering a 2-year-old child I tend to think ‘The bastard’s gotta die.’ Or when I’m driving – ‘Fuck off, you moron!’. Or in sports, a hard foul from behind that could’ve broken my knee … However, such thoughts of retaliation in kind are generally not serious.

Denise Pitayataratorn

I believe everybody has fantasies of murder. Everybody must have dreamt about killing someone, possibly in quite a bizarre manner – with a dessert fork or a butter knife. Never realistically, though.

Pino Lux

I believe the violence published in and by certain media … such as the massacres in schools, in Germany or in the USA … well, of course, it’s scary and sad at first. However, it’s not that it affects me deeply and makes me sit in my office all day contemplating it with a heavy heart. It’s something that happened. And that made me feel bad. Briefly.

Christian Scharf

I can absolutely imagine some people being shocked about it. It does trigger oppressive and extreme emotions – feelings of distaste, one feels sickened. And feelings of fear. And that’s as it should be. It’s supposed to generate feelings in people and make them think.